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Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s
A lively look at the ways in which American women in the 1920s transformed their lives through performance and fashion.
New definitions of American femininity were formed in the pivotal 1920s, an era that vastly expanded the "market" for sexually explicit displays by women. Angela J. Latham shows how quarrels over and censorship of women's performance ― particularly in the arenas of fashion and theater ― uniquely reveal the cultural idiosyncracies of the period and provide valuable clues to the developing iconicity of the female body in its more recent historical phases.
Through disguise, display, or judicious appropriation of both, performance became a crucial means by which women contested, affirmed, mitigated, and revolutionized norms of female self-presentation and self-stylization. Fashion was a hotly contested arena of bodily display. Latham surveys 1920s fashion trends and explores popular fashion rhetoric. Resistance to social mandates regarding women's fashion was nowhere more pronounced than in the matter of "bathing costumes." Latham critiques locally situated contests over swimwear, including those surrounding the first Miss America Pageant, and suggests how such performances sanctioned otherwise unacceptable self-presentations by women.
Looking at American theater, Latham summarizes major arguments about censorship and the ideological assumptions embedded within them. Although sexually provocative displays by women were often the focus of censorship efforts, "leg shows," including revues like the Zeigfeld Follies, were in their heyday. Latham situates the popularity of such performances that featured women's bodies within the larger context of censorship in the American theater at this time.
New definitions of American femininity were formed in the pivotal 1920s, an era that vastly expanded the "market" for sexually explicit displays by women. Angela J. Latham shows how quarrels over and censorship of women's performance ― particularly in the arenas of fashion and theater ― uniquely reveal the cultural idiosyncracies of the period and provide valuable clues to the developing iconicity of the female body in its more recent historical phases.
Through disguise, display, or judicious appropriation of both, performance became a crucial means by which women contested, affirmed, mitigated, and revolutionized norms of female self-presentation and self-stylization. Fashion was a hotly contested arena of bodily display. Latham surveys 1920s fashion trends and explores popular fashion rhetoric. Resistance to social mandates regarding women's fashion was nowhere more pronounced than in the matter of "bathing costumes." Latham critiques locally situated contests over swimwear, including those surrounding the first Miss America Pageant, and suggests how such performances sanctioned otherwise unacceptable self-presentations by women.
Looking at American theater, Latham summarizes major arguments about censorship and the ideological assumptions embedded within them. Although sexually provocative displays by women were often the focus of censorship efforts, "leg shows," including revues like the Zeigfeld Follies, were in their heyday. Latham situates the popularity of such performances that featured women's bodies within the larger context of censorship in the American theater at this time.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
217 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 11, 2025
Popsugar 2025: a book under 250 pages
Read Harder 2025: a book about a moral panic
This book looks like a lot more fun than it is, but I really enjoyed it. A scholarly work that covers the social ramifications of seemingly innocuous such as bobbed haircuts, exposed legs at the beach, beautiful chorus girls.
The American 1920s were a time of great social upheaval (as tends to happen after major wars), and Dr Latham examines that upheaval through the lens of women's performance, may it be as private as one's stockings or nightgown, or as public as Ziegfeld's Follies.
Her chapters and scholarship are fantastic, well researched and well thought out. I could certainly imagine myself discussing some of these in one of my Women's Studies classes back in college 25 years ago! The one star deduction is for the final chapter, an in-depth analysis of an obscure play that is neither included nor summarized; it felt like I was jumping into a conversation that had already been going for about an hour.
Read Harder 2025: a book about a moral panic
This book looks like a lot more fun than it is, but I really enjoyed it. A scholarly work that covers the social ramifications of seemingly innocuous such as bobbed haircuts, exposed legs at the beach, beautiful chorus girls.
The American 1920s were a time of great social upheaval (as tends to happen after major wars), and Dr Latham examines that upheaval through the lens of women's performance, may it be as private as one's stockings or nightgown, or as public as Ziegfeld's Follies.
Her chapters and scholarship are fantastic, well researched and well thought out. I could certainly imagine myself discussing some of these in one of my Women's Studies classes back in college 25 years ago! The one star deduction is for the final chapter, an in-depth analysis of an obscure play that is neither included nor summarized; it felt like I was jumping into a conversation that had already been going for about an hour.
March 5, 2014
The American culture in transition: Flappers and Gibson Girls of 1920s
This book is partly historical in nature that discusses as how the women in 1920s redefined sexuality and feminist movement. The expression of sexuality and nakedness as flapper girls on Broadway and Hollywood movies of 1920s paved the way for women’s revolution; for expressing themselves as women using emerging fashion of that time. The “flapper look” was as much a pose as it was a particular style of clothing that women wore. It was a frank and free expression and the allure of beauty at its core. The ladies started looking for autonomy for their financial, moral or physical well-being; it was a sisterhood of mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who needed to look out for each other and protect their interests. Specific arguments against fashionable displays by women in 1920s by clergy, politicians, and self-proclaimed community leaders seemed, more often, as red herrings. Women struggled against enormous odds to define a nebulous entity in terms of their own identities. They received multiple and conflicting messages about who they should be. Everyone wanted to control women’s clothing. The controversies that raged about women’s fashions throughout 1920s do indeed mark this era as important one in which to assess the interplay between conflicting social and ideological agendas inscribed on the bodies of women. The performance of fashion raised troubling questions. Case in point; the one-piece bathing suit popularized by Annette Kellerman, professional swimmer and vaudeville star was legally banned in many countries, and she was arrested for indecent exposure at Boston Revere Beach in 1908. For the “guardians of moral values” the less restrictive clothes went hand-in-hand with diminishing morals of women. Some sociologists suggested that sexual mores were changing.
In one chapter the author discuss the power of performance about brazen feminity by examining the play, “Ladies Night in a Turkish Bath,” originally written by Charlton Andrews and later reworked by Avery Hopwood. The story is about a gentleman who undergoes a homeopathic treatment to cure his bashfulness lands in a Turkish bath on ladies' night. It was censored in Chicago for its unbashful display of women. The play violated unwritten and yet powerful codes of personal intimacy by the close proximity of using nudity. The bedroom farce of this play had moved one step closer to raw humanity and the fact the whole play was set in a bath was threatening to many folks. The author’s careful examination of this play and how it was received by general public makes a very interesting read.
The author concludes that American 1920’s represented a high-water mark in female autonomy using fashion and body display and changed the attitudes towards morality. Women presented their fashion and body as a site and not a symbol; feminity is sacred. This focus complicated our perception of what it meant to be a woman in 1920s; even now after almost 100 years, the attitude towards fairer sex has not significantly changed.
This book is partly historical in nature that discusses as how the women in 1920s redefined sexuality and feminist movement. The expression of sexuality and nakedness as flapper girls on Broadway and Hollywood movies of 1920s paved the way for women’s revolution; for expressing themselves as women using emerging fashion of that time. The “flapper look” was as much a pose as it was a particular style of clothing that women wore. It was a frank and free expression and the allure of beauty at its core. The ladies started looking for autonomy for their financial, moral or physical well-being; it was a sisterhood of mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who needed to look out for each other and protect their interests. Specific arguments against fashionable displays by women in 1920s by clergy, politicians, and self-proclaimed community leaders seemed, more often, as red herrings. Women struggled against enormous odds to define a nebulous entity in terms of their own identities. They received multiple and conflicting messages about who they should be. Everyone wanted to control women’s clothing. The controversies that raged about women’s fashions throughout 1920s do indeed mark this era as important one in which to assess the interplay between conflicting social and ideological agendas inscribed on the bodies of women. The performance of fashion raised troubling questions. Case in point; the one-piece bathing suit popularized by Annette Kellerman, professional swimmer and vaudeville star was legally banned in many countries, and she was arrested for indecent exposure at Boston Revere Beach in 1908. For the “guardians of moral values” the less restrictive clothes went hand-in-hand with diminishing morals of women. Some sociologists suggested that sexual mores were changing.
In one chapter the author discuss the power of performance about brazen feminity by examining the play, “Ladies Night in a Turkish Bath,” originally written by Charlton Andrews and later reworked by Avery Hopwood. The story is about a gentleman who undergoes a homeopathic treatment to cure his bashfulness lands in a Turkish bath on ladies' night. It was censored in Chicago for its unbashful display of women. The play violated unwritten and yet powerful codes of personal intimacy by the close proximity of using nudity. The bedroom farce of this play had moved one step closer to raw humanity and the fact the whole play was set in a bath was threatening to many folks. The author’s careful examination of this play and how it was received by general public makes a very interesting read.
The author concludes that American 1920’s represented a high-water mark in female autonomy using fashion and body display and changed the attitudes towards morality. Women presented their fashion and body as a site and not a symbol; feminity is sacred. This focus complicated our perception of what it meant to be a woman in 1920s; even now after almost 100 years, the attitude towards fairer sex has not significantly changed.
October 5, 2016
Angela Latham looks at the role that performance played in woman's lives in the 1920s as different views on public morality, fashion and art were debated through personal choices. She looks at the 'flapper' fashion, female swimsuits, and stage productions like revues, chorus lines and burlesque shows. I found the first half of the book fascinating as she looked at female fashion, especially how women's personal choices of products, hairstyle and swimsuit style navigated a complicated public dialogue about how the public defined morality and how rules could be bent through the use of performance. However, I felt that the second half that focused only on the theater felt flat. While the book started off with a broad look at events and movements across the United States, the second half was restricted largely to New York and Chicago. While Latham's background is in theater, the narrowing focus left me feeling underwhelmed as a discussion about how many women was choosing to express herself was shifted to a discussion about a select few performers. Both parts were interesting, but it made me wish that she had made two books, rather than one.
January 26, 2016
This book definitely has the feel of someone's dissertation. The title is somewhat misleading, as the author focuses on how performance and gender demonstrate the changing attitudes of the Jazz Age. Specifically, she focuses on swimwear and chorus girls. Flappers are nowhere to be seen, except as in a broader discussion on fashion.
June 18, 2007
It looked interesting from the cover, and you know how much I love the 1920s, but the book is so dry it's like reading a medical journal. Stay away from this one.
November 1, 2013
So poorly written I couldn't finish it. If you can get past the writing, you might enjoy this book for the historical content.
March 11, 2014
This wasn't bad but it was much shorter than I expected - the last third or so were notes. And it wasn't quite what I expected, in terms of subject matter.
September 24, 2014
I first read this a few years ago and it did not quite measure up to my memory of it, though it's still worthwhile reading for all interested in the 1920s, women's history, and fashion history.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews